Farmhand: A Crowdsourcing Platform for Farmers and Local Food Producers

Farmhand is a service that helps farmers and local food producers make their dream projects a reality. Created by designers Vidhi Goel, Lance Green, and Julia Plevin, this Kickstarter-meets-Good Eggs company gets food projects funded through crowdsourcing.

Farmhand is designed to make uploading projects—and supporting those projects—frictionless and easy. And one of the ways it does that is by removing "the hassles of rewards." “I don’t want to have to mail a wedge of cheese to everyone who supported me,” reported a dairy farmer at the Union Square Green Market, revealing that the burden of giving rewards to funders is one of the current barriers to entry for farmers interested in crowdfunding campaigns. On the supply side, research reveals that many people who support crowdfunding campaigns don’t do it for the rewards: “I wanted to support a cool cause; I don’t really need any more trinkets,” said a recent Kickstarter project supporter.

As part of the Better By Measure class, the project brief for Farmhand was to create a startup that either disrupted or supported a business. The group chose to disrupt Blue Apron—a service that home delivers ingredients and recipes for meal preparation.

The group felt that Blue Apron adds many new layers to the food system—introducing lots of unsustainable materials, packaging, and transportation fuel to the the equation—and instead endeavored to create a startup that connects people more directly to farmers and farmer needs.

As is often discovered through design research, the people closest to the problem frequently have the best solutions.

Following initial exploration, the group quickly honed in on innovating around the CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) business model. Early interviews revealed that people—especially young busy people in urban environments—liked the idea of CSAs better than the actual experience of them. And since they like the idea of supporting farmers and a stronger local food system, the group asked themselves, "what is the best way to do that?"

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Answering that question proved to be very challenging. Farmhand went through many iterations and pivots after talking to farmers around the country via Twitter, and conducting local interviews at the Union Square Greenmarket in New York City.

“We want to get even closer to farmers as we launch Farmhand,” said Julia Plevin. “This isn’t the kind of company that you can start from New York City. We have to be out in the field, literally.”

A few key insights led to the final iteration of Farmhand. First, farmers need funding, but there is no simple, straightforward way to acquire it. (Strategies have ranged from collecting money via blog advertisements, to applying for government grants.) Second, farmers have more ideas for improving the local food system than entrepreneurs.

Through surveys, the group surfaced many of ideas that farmers already have for dream projects: Purchasing more land; building apiaries; switching to solar; moving to organic feed for animals; building poly-houses to extend the growth season; creating a youth entrepreneurial internship; and starting an educational children’s garden. As is often discovered through design research, the people closest to the problem frequently have the best solutions. Finally, farmers are already supporting each other’s projects through creative microfinancing.

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Farmhand makes it easy for farmers to support each other, and for farm lovers to support farmers. Both the web platform as well as the mobile app create the pitch—the project creator—by combining factual information with video, automatically stitching them together into compelling narrative. “In an earlier iteration, we positioned ourselves as Kickstarter consultants for local food producers,” said Vidhi Goel. “We had someone who was interested in our services, but we quickly realized that people who are raising money don’t have funds available to pay for a bespoke service. So we designed an app and web platform that did more handholding, but was more automated.”

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A big challenge for the future of Farmhand has been that some farmers are wary of people who don’t understand their business and all of the risks that that business entails. That said, younger farmers tend to be more open to apps and innovation. As one interviewee at the Union Square Green Market said in response to seeing the Farmhand prototype, “This is great—especially for young farmers like my friends and I. It’s hard to get started if you don’t have land.”

“We want to get even closer to farmers as we launch Farmhand,” said Julia Plevin. “This isn’t the kind of company that you can start from New York City. We have to be out in the field, literally.”

As part of SVA Products of Design’s partnership with Veterans Affairs (and held through the Design Research and Integration class taught by IDEO’s Lawrence Abrahamson) , designers Jiani Lin, Alexia Cohen, Teng Yu, William Crum, and Antriksh Nangia used design to examine gender and the military—creating two design proposals aimed at changing the way people “see” women veterans.

Natsuki Hayashi’s master's thesis, titled Sincerely, explores a contemporary design of assisted suicide. Utilizing design to reimagine the way we die, Natsuki pushes the boundaries of the legally, morally, and emotionally appropriate ways to end life.

“We are living in a contemporary world of slow deaths,” writes bioethicist Margaret Battin. Indeed, deaths have specific shapes to them. But with deaths that are predictable, occur later in life, and can be delayed for longer periods of time using advanced medical technology, doctors can do a lot to prolong life—even if it means more suffering for the patients. Today, most doctors have no choice but to help end the lives and suffering of their patients.

This year, the students of the MFA Products of Design took home 2 honors in this year's Core77 Design Awards! The recognized work spanned multiple categories—from Service Design to Design for Social Impact to Strategy and Research. Interaction Design and Service Design to Furniture and Lighting. Check them out below, and click to see the complete projects on Core77!

Huge congratulations to Panisa Khunprasert, who's just-released Geo Stacking Coasters are now featured on the cover of the 2017 MoMA Wholesale Catalog! From the catalog: "These sets of colorful silicone stacking coasters feature varying geometric faceted edges that create visual and tactile appeal. Designed for MoMA’s collaboration with the MFA Products of Design program at the School of Visual Arts, they are playful, decorative and functional.